This Isn't the Time to Be Dead
by The Candlestick Maker
Summary: Pre-Glee: Everyone, at one point or another, has had the nightmare. But when a string of seemingly unrelated, deaths strikes a small town like Lima, Quinn can only wonder if the saying, "Die in the dream, die in reality," is really just a saying or...
1. Chapter 1: The First to Die

**Title: **This Isn't the Time to Be Dead

**Pairing:** Quinn&Rachel

**Author:** The Candlestick Maker

**Rating:** M

**Genre:** Horror, Romance

**Summary:** "They say that if you fall and die in the dream, you die in reality."

**Author's Note:** Decided to write something completely different for me: Horror Romance. This takes place pre-Glee. Based off of Catherine, because I am a videogame addict. If you have no idea what Catherine is, check out the trailer at youtube: /watch?v=-a69nmiAvSY

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**This Isn't the Time to Be Dead**

**Chapter One: The First To Die**

You may have heard this story before and though the names and faces have changed, I can guarantee you that what happens in this nightmare realm will not. Now before I continue, I must warn you – what you are about to discover, should you continue, is a tale of misery, betrayal, uncertainty, and hatred. But most of all, it is a tale of love. There are people casted into the nightmare that you will be able to see with love, people who will never be able to escape their fate. Still, there will be others who you see with hatred, only to be met with a love undeserved.

I cannot guarantee you a happy ending, if that is what you scourge for; I can only guarantee you the harsh reality of what will transpire in the next few days. If you may be a skeptic, I can assure you: people will die. Not necessarily the residents of the world of the waking, but residents nonetheless.

This story begins with death and ends with death.

A girl in the small-town of Lima, Ohio had been prematurely skirted away by the Nightmare.

** X O X O**

"Did you hear about it?" Quinn Fabray's self-proclaimed best friend and fellow cheerleader, Santana Lopez asked her on route to the school's parking lot.

Tentatively, McKinley's blonde head cheerleader nodded her response. It had been all over the news that last night –the death of a teenage girl, who no one really knew until it was too late.

"She went to our school, Q." Santana said with an unreadable expression, which was uncharacteristically sullen of her. "She just…died. No signs of illness or struggle. According to the autopsy, nothing was wrong with her. It was like there was no cause of death; she just died in her sleep."

That notion sent a shiver down Quinn's entire body.

"It's probably just something that didn't show up in the scans," Santana reasoned, hopelessly reaching for that little bit of closure. The latina placed a sturdy hand on her friend's shoulder, sensing her sudden discomfort with the situation. "Are you okay?"

The blonde cheerleader shook her head, "I just wish I would have gotten to know her better." Her words were like hollow echoes in the empty school halls. On some level, they had probably known the girl better anyone else at the school had, having tormented her for years. As evidenced on her MySpace account, she didn't have many friends.

"I knew her. Kind of," a third cheerleader known as Brittany S. Pierce claimed, sneaking up behind the two rather swiftly. She snaked her arms around a shaky Santana Lopez. "Her last name was like a fruit." Then frowning, the taller blonde turned to her shoes in guilt. "I'll miss her."

"It's okay, Britt," Santana soothed while grazing her unofficial girlfriend's forearm. "You never really did anything wrong to her. It was me and Quinn who deserve to feel guilty."

_Which was true._ Quinn swallowed, but it didn't make it sound any easier. While they certainly hadn't been the reason for her death, they certainly hadn't made her life any easier. Her head was spinning now; her stomach, queasy with the overwhelming blame. She stumbled forward, only to have Brittany reach over to steady her.

"Maybe I should drive, Q."

Santana leaned over to reprimand her keys, while Brittany kept her from heaving in the backseat. The taller blonde cheerleader opted out of sitting shotgun to rest Quinn's head on her lap in the backseat. Always the sweetest member of the trio, Brittany rubbed circles in her temples with the pads of her fingers until Quinn's eyelids shut.

_What's wrong with me?_

** X O X O**

The Nightmare was coming.

** X O X O**

Few people can make sense of it the first night they experience the Nightmare. How they ended up here and what it is they are running away from – these are only the questions they say out loud. What they are afraid to ask though, is _why_.

Right? Left? There is only one escape from the night terrors: Up.

** X O X O**

_Climb._ Quinn told herself, bringing her other hand onto the ledge as her legs dangled off the sides of the tower. Someone, no something, was following her up the tower and forcing her to climb. Its face was hidden by the shadows and the darkness that seemed to consume everything around her.

She heard the horrid screams of those who were not fast enough to escape the Nightmare. Those who fell to the beast below, did so with little grace. Her chest tightens. They didn't teach you how to climb like this at cheer camp. With every inch she forced herself to climb she knew was an inch further between herself and…whatever was eliciting those blood-hurdling screams below.

She was almost at the top now, and her hands had started to sweat, making it hard to climb away from the beast. Grunting, she threw her right hand onto the next ledge, digging her fingers into the gritty surface. She heard the inhuman sounds of the beast growing closer now and thrusted herself to the final ledge, pulling her limp body to the top.

"Please, help me." Called a voice from the bleakness down under, perhaps the first voice Quinn had heard in this place. She casted her gaze down to capture the image of a boy with thickly glasses desperately clinging to the cliff. In a second he consumed by the beast. He screamed, too.

Frightened, she ventured closer to the ledge tentatively, and looked down the tunnel of darkness. The creature met her eyes, its face suddenly growing clearer to her. She wanted to look away but couldn't. Because, while its form looked different – with eyes of eerie, misty red and tangled, dark-brown hair – she recognized the face that had been plastered all over Lima's news channels. The girl who had died in her sleep, the girl who had every reason to haunting her dreams, who she had tormented for years -

Suzy Pepper.

** X O X O**

"Get away from me!" Quinn Fabray had woken up screaming. Clinging to her sheets, she realized that Santana and Brittany had more than likely brought her home after she had passed out. They were good friends though she would have never admitted it to Santana.

She brought a hand to her head, trying to mentally thwart the near aneurysm-like headache she was having. Instead, she felt her pulse and blood gushing through the vessels in her head. Why was heart beating so fast, she asked herself, still unable to recall just what it was that woke her so suddenly. She pursed her lips, realizing she actually wasn't quite sure what she had been dreaming of in the first place.

It was probably just Coach Sylvester's new training regimen that was putting such a strain on her, Quinn reasoned.

A cold sweat had covered her body, her muscles were sore and her body felt limp, but she managed to move herself off the mattress. She made her way to the living room only to find that her father, Russell Fabray, passed out with the television set still on. Quinn reached for the remote, but paused before clicking it off.

The news channel was on.

Through bleary eyes, she glared at the electric screen. There were two things, she realized at that moment. The first, which she noticed quite quickly, was that Brittany thought that peppers were fruits. The second, she realized that there was another name written underneath Suzy Peppers in recent local deaths:

_Suzy Pepper, aged 16. _

_Artie Abrams, aged 15._

When they flashed his picture on the screen, she couldn't help but notice how familiar the boy with thick glasses looked to her. A jolt of pain surged through her head again and she pressed her hand against her migraine, letting out only a quiet, anguished 'ah.'

McKinley High school's head cheerleader shook her head, finally gathering the nerve to shut of the electric screen in favor of retrieving some Advil for herself.

"Don't worry about it. You're just losing your mind, Fabray." She murmured to herself as she downed the capsule and returned to bed, though she knew she would be unable to get any sleep now anyway…


	2. Chapter 2: A Midnight Meeting

**Chapter Two: A Midnight Meeting**

As expected, sleep eluded her for the remainder of the night. Following several hours of tossing and turning for naught, Quinn decided to give up and instead slid into a cold, morning shower. Wrapping the towel around her slender form, she glanced at cold reflection in her bedroom mirror.

Hazel eyes scrutinized every inch of her now tired face. Accordingly, she tried to amend this: She applied eye shadow to make her eyes stand out– but found it too ridiculous – and tested cherry gloss to lips to make them shine only to find that it made her lips feel tight and unnatural.

Exasperated, the school's head cheerleader let out an exasperated sigh and headed back to the sink. She ran the faucet, letting the cool stream of water wash away and remaining makeup. Then frustrated with her hair, she simply tied it up and slid into her immaculate red-and-white cheerleading uniform.

By the time she had finished, her mother, Judy Fabray was already busy brewing coffee in the kitchen. As per usual, Russell was nursing his hangover. Quinn frowned at her father as she entered the semi contemporary kitchen, acknowledging his existence with a curt nod.

"You're late." The stern blonde man said, having already seated himself firmly at the kitchen table. He had to keep one hand on his head to stop the residual hangover. "Do you know what happens if you're late for practice, Quinn? They kick you off the team." Quinn looked to her mother, but Judy was already wavering. "Your sister, Charlotte was never late…"

Inwardly, Quinn rolled her eyes. She wanted to stop his rant.. She wanted to tell him to stop mentioning her whenever she did something less than their family name. She wanted to tell her mother to stop smiling and say something for a change. But she didn't, because that was the 'Fabray' thing do. Inwardly, she was screaming. Outwardly, she was plastering on a smile and hurrying herself to vacate as soon as possible.

"At least have breakfast, Quinnie!" Judy Fabray called after the teenager, though by the time the words left her mouth, Quinn was already halfway out the door.

** X O X O**

"Well, fuck me," Santana Lopez, a vixen of all sorts, crowed from the driver's seat. She never was known for being subtle, almost making it a point to look her friend up and down before Brittany smacked the back of her head for 'leering'. "You look like absolute crap. You know Coach Sylvester's going to flip out when she sees you like that at practice."

"Sloppy babies!" Brittany imitated from the backseat of Santana's convertible.

"Thanks guys, that's real helpful," Quinn replied smartly, as she shimmied her way into the passenger's seat, head falling almost immediately onto the headrest. "I didn't really sleep well last night." Which was a complete and utter understatement.

"Oh!" Brittany's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "You should try singing to her, Santana. When you sing me to sleep after we have sex, I always sleep really well," Quinn raised an eyebrow. Never one known for her tact, Brittany leant forward into the passenger seat, "She has the most beautiful singing voice, Q."

"Does she?" Quinn smirked as Santana turned a deep shade of red. She even went so far as to jab the trio's token brunette with her index finger. "Do you, really?" To which Santana rolled her eyes.

"Poke the bear one more time, Fabray. Come on, I dare you! See what happens." The latina quipped and though she grinned afterward, Quinn didn't care to see exactly what it was Santana expected to happen. "So, what kept you up last night, Sleeping Beauty?"

"It was…a dream." Quinn murmured, still unable to form any recollections of the night before.

"Oh? Was it a sexy dream? Was it about Finn?" Brittany asked from the backseat. Again, virtually tactless.

Santana opened her mouth, "Excuse me while I gag at that mental image."

"It was actually more of a nightmare, Britt," Quinn corrected her, reminding the taller blonde that she was actually still very much a virgin. Sighing, the head cheerleader perched her chine on her open palm, leaning her elbow on the armrest.

"Did it have any ducks in it?" The tall, blonde cheerleader asked, genuinely concerned.

Caught off guard, the less perky blonde smiled at her question. Then frowned, at her own answer, "It's stupid, really. I just…I can't really remember what it was even about. I was just terrified, if that's possible."

For a second, she thought she saw Santana give her a look, but it must've been her imagination because she was never really one to get to serious about these things. In the next instant, she found the latina grinning at her manically. "Tell us when you start wetting the bed again, Q."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "You're hilarious, Santana."

But the cheeky devil stole the bait and her line too, "I know, Fabray."

"I usually dream of ducks," Brittany was pondering aloud in the back seat. "They come in all different shapes, from far and wide. and once there was a princess goose from Portugal, who said the most bizarre things."

**X O X O**

"No, sorry Santana - I don't do drugs." Quinn replied when the brunette have plopped two blue pills into her hands. What was it? Cocaine? The latina's frowned came through her vision in awkward waves.

"Aspirin, you kook. It's aspirin." Santana, despite her new wavy appearance, seemed actually concerned for once. "From the looks of it, you're going to need it."

"Am I?" Quinn tried to be coy despite her condition. She stumbled forward again, but Santana caught her, steadying her on her shoulder.

Under her weight, the latina groaned, "Are you sure you don't just want to go to the nurse?"

Quinn shook her head, which only sent the room spinning again. The world was a sea of waves and colors blending together like a Van Gogh. "No, no. I'll be fine. Besides, the school nurse is sort of a nut."

"Would it help if I carried you, Quinn?" Brittany piped in, considering this a viable option.

"No, no." Quinn said, pushing herself off Brittany and ambling onto her feet. "Can you guys just tell, Mr. Shuester I'll be late to Spanish. I think I just need to go to the bathroom." The two of them nodded and Quinn stumbled through the bathroom door.

Running the faucet, she splashed the cold water onto her face and stared at herself in the mirror. Her face was paler and thinner than it had ever been. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. She really did need some sleep. Reaching to turn off the faucet, Quinn heard the lurching in the stalls behind her.

She neared the first stall bravely, pressing her fists against the door. "Excuse me, were you making yourself throw up in there?"

"Trying to, at least." Came the voice from behind the stall. "This is actually shaping up to be harder than expected when you have absolutely no gag reflex.

"Been there," Quinn laughed, half-heartedly.

"Then you know how desperately I want this." The voice laughed back. It was cheery, despite the circumstances, and very light. The type of voice that was made for music.

"You don't have to do this to yourself, you know…"

"I'm not quite sure I know what you mean."

Quinn shook her head, "It's just... it's not worth it. It's never worth."

There was no answer, so Quinn pressed herself off the stall and had already made her way half way out the door without an answer before she heard a quiet, "Thank you." And she nodded.

Finn, who was already waiting for her in class, greeted her with a chaste kiss. "Santana told me you weren't feeling okay?"

Quinn smiled at him absently, "Actually, I think I'm feeling a bit better."

**X O X O**

For the most part, the death of Artie Abrahms, seemed to have even less of an effect on McKinley High than Suzy Pepper's had. He was freshman, one who was flew under the radar no less, was known mostly for having petitioned the school to include wheelchair ramps in the gymnasium. His photo had been shown in the gymnasium during the assembly. His thin, brown hair peeking up over the frames of very thick glasses.

And though Quinn hadn't known him, she still found it hard to look at his picture.

There was one girl who mourned him, and she sat by herself at lunch now, just staring at her chicken soup.

"What do you think's wrong with her?" Santana asked in the middle of lunch. Brittany elbowed her slightly.

"They were dating. _That boy_ and her." Brittany said softly, "I used to see them in the hallways. They always listened when I talked about ducks. Even if they were hardly experts in the matter."

Resting her cheek on her hand, Quinn just continued to stare at her.

"She doesn't have any other friends?" Finn asked, always a blunt one.

Brittany shrugged. "She had me."

"We should sit with her then, B." Quinn mouthed, much to the shock of her table mates. "I mean, we could, couldn't we?"

"Yes..." Puck started. "It's just, you're the biggest bitch in the school." Santana elbowed him for her.

Quinn cleared her throat, having already made up her mind to sit with the gothic girl. Standing up though proved useless though, as the second she did, a swarm of others had already gathered around her. Two girls and a boy. She knew two of them: The first, she had only met because he had paired up with Finn for a school project, was Kurt Hummel. The second, the shorter of the two girls, was Rachel Berry - and they were less than friendly.

"Quinn?" Santana asked, making the blonde realize she was still standing.

"Right." The blonde said, traversing across the cafeteria to the amicable group. When she just there, they looked up at her with confused, wary faces.

"Where's the slushy?" Kurt asked, pensively. "Because I would prefer if you didn't try to slushy me, Assassin's Creed style."

"I don't have one, Hummel."

"And I'm the Queen of Portugal."

The sassy girl next to Kurt waved it off, "She's probably just going to use her words, instead. Come on, cheerleader. Roll with the inappropriate jokes on body image, now. We'll just cry in the bathrooms later-"

"That's not what I-"

"I'm sorry, Quinn." Quinn wondered how the goth knew her name. "But I don't really feel like crying in the bathroom again today."

At a loss for words, the blonde hinged slowly, making her way back to the table of football players and cheerleaders where Mike and Matt were busy doing flips off the table for fun. She plopped her tray next to Santana's.

"Shot down, eh?" Noah Puckerman asked, smirking.

"Shut up, Puck." Quinn retorted, picking at her mess of asparagus goulash with a fork. Exhaling, she set down her fork and looked back at the table with the four who had already made their assumptions of her. She blinked.

_Huh?_

If she hadn't known any better, she might've thought that Rachel Berry had been looking at her with something other than distaste.

******X O X O**

She had the Nightmare again last night.

But somehow, it seemed easier. Her muscles had gotten used to the strain and she considered the _thing_ chasing her, far less worrisome than it seemed the first night. It did shock her though, looking at that face as it was illuminated by light reflected off the heavenly bell...Why was she running away from Finn? She pondered the question as she climbed up the golden staircase that led to the sound of a chiming bell.

At the end of the staircase, she found herself atop a platform, a seeming safe haven in the tower, with several other 'survivors' who had just faced their ordeals. It hadn't occurred to her how many had faced this, were facing this, or had already fallen to the Dream. Some were crying, some were victorious and shouting at the top of their lungs. One boy, who she had seen dancing up the tower with little strain, was training with another boy of equal fortitude, pushing each other's hands rather gleefully. Had they seen the others die?

Quinn looked around, eyes attracted to the edge of the platform.

The dark abyss below seemed a warning to those who weren't tactile enough to keep from falling down.

The sound of sobbing tore her from the abyss though and she turned, only to find a rather gothic girl crying by the end of the stairs and another girl, a much shorter girl, hunched beside her and rubbing her back in big circles. "What's wrong with her?" Quinn asked to which the girl with the long, dark hair shot her a look.

"She's crying, what do you think is wrong with her?" The short brunette asked, with an animosity that seemed to remind her of someone. The blonde still looked baffled so the brunette continued. "Her boyfriend - well someone who should have been - just died. You should know better than to ask."

"I was trying to be helpful!" Quinn retorted, raising her voice a little. Apologetically, Quinn glanced at the goth. "I'm sorry."

"T-there was this boy. He was p-perfect. I never told him how I felt, um f-feel about him. And now, I never will." The girl stuttered. Quinn doesn't know what to say.

"Tell me about him." The blonde said, pushing back a strand of the weeping girl's hair before stroking the dark curtain.

The Goth smiled weakly through the tears as she began to paint a picture of the boy who she had never told and the days that would never come, "H-he was a n-nerd, the best kind. W-wore bowties and s-supenders. And horrible old man trousers with m-mismatched socks." Her voice cracks in a stifled laugh. "He was a-always smiling. Laughing at his own corny jokes. H-he always lost his glasses. E-even though he knew he couldn't see three feet w-without them, he was always so reckless. It scared me, sometimes… We walked everywhere – well, I walked and he rolled. He…I loved him. I never told him that."

Quinn knelt down, much to the shorter girl's surprise. Her head bobbed up and down as she stroked the sobbing girl's hair. Above their heads, a bell was chiming in rhythmic unison to what she could only assume of the beating of her own heart.

The brunette next to her, pointed to a confession booth at the top of the platform. "I think it's your turn. Are you ready for the question?" She asked.

Quinn furrowed her eyebrows. "What question?"

The brunette did an odd thing, then. She smiled. "You're new here, aren't you? Still so innocent..." The blonde nodded and the brunette extended her hand. "There's a question, every night from now. A question that makes you...re-evaluate your life. A question of the tower. A question that decides where you'll end up."

Quinn gulped. "Sounds...terrifying."

"It is." She returned, watching as Quinn turned toward the confession booth with darkness engulfing her. The brunette bit her lip, standing up suddenly. "In case I din't see you - I'm Rachel."

"Quinn." The blonde girl replied automatically. Quinn turned, a look of confusion suddenly washed over her face. Why did that seem so...

Familiar?

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**A/N: **To explain, I'm trying to write these chapters as a progression of Quinn's relationship with Rachel outside the Nightmare, as well as within the Nightmare where she must face her dark ordeals.

Also, just because of the random Assassin's Creed reference, I leave you with this: 'We work in the dark to serve the light. We are assassins.'


End file.
